Understanding the Basiscs

Start Here: Understanding the Basics of How We Train

If you're new to the gym — or just new to training with me — this is where we begin.

Before we worry about how much weight you can lift or how many reps you can do, we need to understand something far more important: how your body moves.

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Mechanics Come First

When I talk about "mechanics," I’m talking about biomechanics — how your body is designed to move.

In the gym, this boils down to two basic actions: pushing and pulling. That might sound simple, but it’s the foundation of everything we do.

Let’s break that down:

Upper Body Pushing — like push-ups, bench presses, or overhead presses. You’re pressing weight away from your body using your chest, shoulders, and triceps.

Upper Body Pulling — think rows or pull-ups. You’re pulling weight toward your body using your back and biceps.

Lower Body Pushing — squats, lunges, step-ups. These use your quads and glutes to drive upward — pushing with the legs.

Lower Body Pulling — deadlifts, hip thrusts, kettlebell swings. These involve pulling through your hips and hamstrings.

These categories guide how we train.

We don’t randomly pick exercises — we build your program around these foundational movement patterns.

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The Four Pillars of Strength and Health

From those movement patterns, there are four key exercises that I use to assess and build your strength, mobility, joint health, and overall physical capacity:

Vertical Pushing

Vertical Pulling

Squatting

Deadlifting

These four aren’t just workouts — they’re indicators.

Your ability to perform them tells us everything we need to know about how your body is functioning — from strength and muscle mass to mobility, joint integrity, and balance.

Why these four?

Because they are the most technically demanding movements that the average person will be required to learn and perform in a gym setting.

They challenge your entire body. They require coordination, control, and effort. And they expose any weak links in the chain — which we can then strengthen.

If you can squat well, deadlift cleanly, press overhead with control, and pull vertically with strength —

then you're not just “fit” — you're functional, resilient, and physically capable.

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The Bottom Line

My job isn’t to destroy you with a workout.

It’s to build you, step by step — using simple, smart, and effective principles.

We begin with understanding movement.

We track progress through four key exercises.

And from there, we build real strength — for life, not just for the gym.